i feel like pocahontas

sooo last night i picked up my house key from the bottom of the stairs and put it in a place i thought i was sure to remember. no doubt in my mind, this was the absolute best place to put my key. seeing as how i was drunk then and am sober now, i cannot for the life of me figure out where this place might be. it's a real problem. i have not even a clue where my key might be and i need it at 7:30 am tomorrow morning. i think i remember putting it INTO something, but that's all i've got. so while i'm writing this post i'm taking breaks to search for my key. just so you know, you don't have my undivided attention. that's all i'm sayin.

i'm thinking i'm going to quentin terrantino this blog post. we'll start at the end and work our way backward. why? because the end is when we talk about the food and that's what i'm most concerned about. (clearly.)

actually, the end ends with me getting off the bus about to cry because the bus driver kicked me off the bus and i had no idea where i was. panicking, i reached into my bag to call sally to rescue me and my phone instantly died in my hand. perfect. lost in a foreign country where ppl can only half understand me sometimes. i wandered around in circles a couple times before i realized i was right where i needed to be - right at the shops, just coming from a different direction. kinda lived out one of my greatest fears here, though. good thing i didn't call sally to rescue me. she woulda thought i was a complete bozo.

just found my key, so you're up to date with the process. it was in my bed between my extra comforter and comforter. naturally.

before the bus ride it was walking around downtown auckland for about 2 hours looking for food and shopping for clothes for the night. looking for food was basically a complete disaster - 3 little iowa girls in a huge city. got a recommendation to go to a japanese noodle place that was so japanese we could hardly understand what anything actually was. that was a no. so we turned around and kept walking. we walked past a couple kebab stands which we decided sounded DELICIOUS... then we figured out kebabs here aren't like meat and vegetables on a stick - they're like pita-type sandwiches. so we decided we needed to try that out for size. we stopped at an istanbul street food stand with kebabs and jumped in. the lady got really mad at karen as she was ordering because we didn't understand the process or what the heck salad she was talking about or that we were supposed to pick 3 sauces. somehow we lived through the experience and i ended up with a lamb kebab with sweet chili + something + something sauce and chips.

it was interesting, we'll say. i think i thought it was somewhat fantastical at the time but immediately afterward realized how really not great it was. what was most upsetting was the ketchup was so completely wrong i couldn't recover from it. it was like sweet and gingery and just NOT ketchup. in fact, it was a disgrace to ketchup everywhere. istanbul, figure out how to do ketchup right for the love of God.

Before it was walking around auckland like 3 completely incompetent little tourist girls (speaking of which we look like babies everywhere we go because we're all so short) it was a ride back on the ferry from rangitoto. i am actually surprised we even made it back on the ferry to tell our tale. miranda, karen, and i were, i swear, the like 2nd to last people on that island. i wanted to go down into the lava caves, so we decided we would stop off to do that on the way back from the summit of the volcano.

(it was so so cool by the way. we we didn't have "torches" so we were in darkness. the caves went really deep underground and there was absolutely no one anywhere around us on the island. we started going under the big caves thinking we were coming up on an opening in the cave but realized we were completely wrong. the cave went really far underground and i was so tempted to keep going further. we all quickly became unsettled due to the lack of light we had (our cell phones were not doing us any good) and, more importantly, the fact that no one on the island or in the world knew we were going in there. think about it - worst case scenario would be a bad scenario. so we climbed ourselves back out after a few pictures and started heading back to the ferry.)

When we got back to the bottom of the island (after basically running, tripping, and falling the whole way back down because of the loose gravel? lava rock? whatever it was we were walking on) we thought we had just missed the 3:45 ferry. the island was deserted. it was kinda creepy actually. so we figured we had some time to kill before the 5:00 ferry and started walking around toward the edge of the ocean. idk i think we're all brain dead because we had to have been walking around down there for a good 5 minutes before i looked over and realized the ferry was still there and there was still a giant line to get on. we quickly ran over to jump in line to hitch a ride back to auckland. seriously just made it by the skin of our teeth. (idk but i've been using that phrase a lot lately and i don't like it. sorry to expose you to it here.)

the ferry ride was so stinkin fun. we sat on the top deck this time which seemed like a really good idea at the time. it was actually a genius idea except for the bitter cold wind which basically ate me alive. we had an amazing view of rangitoto as we were leaving and auckland as we were coming in. not to even mention we took the best pictures of all time bc the wind was absolutely nuts. if miranda ever uploads the one of all three of us i'll include it (: the people sitting next to us got up and moved. pretty sure we were the annoying americans all trip. that's what happens with stereotypes - they're fulfilled. good times.

sooo... ugh this quentin terrantino thing is way harder than it needs to be. i'm giving up and going back to the beginning. this is going to be completely incomprehensible by the end lol but oh well.

karen, mirda, and i met at the albany bus station at 11:00. we show up all wearing basically the same thing (embarassing) - little workout clothes, and are freezing our butts off standing beneath the bus station so we went to stand out in the sun in the road. we're standing out there for about 5 minutes before some unanimous, booming voice from above instructs us sarcastically to please wait on the platform. stupid americans from the beginning of the trip. love it. by the way, karen was only wearing an accent of pink so she had to be in the middle of every picture. lol freak.

caught a quick bus to auckland and arrived in the city a bit later. the city seriously looks like it should be on a poster at all times. it's absolutely incredible. bought a ticket to rangitoto for $26 and had about 10 minutes for a quick run to the store before we hopped on the ferry.

karen almost instantly spiller her coffee all over her chair so i knew it was going to be a good day. those are my kinda people :) and there was a lady wearing an indy 500 hat a few rows ahead of me on the ferry, so that brought me a little taste of family. 25 minute ferry ride to rangitoto- easy conversation and good company.

arrived on the volcano and picked our path: lava caves and summit track - 1 hour 45 minute estimated time of travel one way - and set out on our hike. the view just from the bottom of rangi was incredible: auckland across the bay and turquoise, clean, blue-green water, white sailboats set against a bright blue sky littered with fluffy pearl clouds. could not have picked a better day. couldn't wait to set off on our track.

the course was of crushed lava rock, worn to gravel and sand from the plentiful trips to the summit. occasionally there were giant piles of gravel which i vowed to climb over to add to the workout. the footing was loose and slightly treacherous - we had a lot of close calls, especially on the way back down. i felt like we were practically running half the way back.

to the sides of us, we were either surrounded by fields of lava rock or trees and forest like wildcat den. occasionally we would come to an opening and get to look out onto the ocean and auckland. it was seriously amazing. we stopped a couple times for quick snack breaks and for pictures. when we reached the summit it took my breath away. our view was unreal - the bright blue water, green islands, and flecks of white from sailboats looked like a portrait. it was a view that is unreplicated by any pictures i took; they can't capture the way i saw new zealand on that day. we stayed at the summit for probably around an hour. we couldn't pull ourselves away to leave. lots of pictures, including miranda literally announcing to everyone at the top, as loud as she could, "who wants to take our picture for us?" lol still can't believe she did that. awkward pause for about 4 minutes before some unfortunate woman agreed to help us out. we really outdo ourselves with the cultural awkwardness i feel.

Rangitoto

was absolutely amazing. a day i hope to never forget and something i desperately wish to be able to do again at some point.

Cheers to my next adventure. good luck topping this one.